


Victim of the Squall (Rise Up And Rage)

by PlethoraOfCreatures



Series: The Thunderbird Saga [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Birds, Boats and Ships, Camping, Can I make custom tags this way, Cool, Desert Island, Doubt, Gen, Hospitals, I Don't Even Know, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Mild Gore, Minor Violence, Missing Persons, Monsters, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Native American/First Nations Legends & Lore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Ending, Shapeshifting, Storms, Therapy, There's A Tag For That, Yes I can that's wonderful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlethoraOfCreatures/pseuds/PlethoraOfCreatures
Summary: The young man returns home with sparks in his eyes and scars on his heart, and he is not the same as he once was. Not when the cries of thunderbird have gone silent.Not when he is alone.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: The Thunderbird Saga [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863886
Kudos: 3





	Victim of the Squall (Rise Up And Rage)

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh this came so late I'm sorry

There is a young man. 

He lives in a house on top of a hill, with his parents and brother. He decided one day that he wanted to travel the world, and he did. He survived a plane wreck, spinning and falling with lightning trailing after him like the metal feathers from Icarus's wings. 

_(thunderbird, thunderbird, you forgot how to fly)_

He survives. He defeats a predator but falls prey to another different kind. He is scarred, in more ways than one. At night, his dreams are no longer haunted by golden eyes and cries of _thunderbird, thunderbird_ , but terrorized by visions of if they were just a second faster. If the cat dodged the spear. If he was not saved by the storm and hit the ground moving faster than a bullet. 

The first time he has one of these nightmares, one of the ship's crew to wake him up. The young man rewards the consideration with a forearm to the throat. 

(it is not his fault, the crewman tells him kindly. 

_then who's fault is it_ , the young man wants to scream.)

He has not heard the voice in ages. He doesn't want to say that he misses it, but still. He still has the feather, still golden-brown and zipping with lightning. It matches his eyes, he sees when he looks in the mirror. It scares him. 

( _l_ _ittle thunderbird_ , he thinks, not hears, and how he wishes it was different.)

The young man's body has changed in other ways as well. He is gaunt, and though he has kept some of his muscle, he can count every one of his ribs. But after such a long time without a full meal, his stomach can barely take the rich foods placed in front of them. 

(his eyes burn gold as he hunches over the side of the rail, out of sight and silently as a ghost. even on a metal ship, he makes no noise.)

The young man doesn’t much care for the ship. It is by no fault of the captain or the crewmen. In fact, they go out of their way to make sure his stay is comfortable. He is not sure whether or not the kindness is born out of pity, and he doesn’t want to know for certain. 

(because if it is not from pity, then it is from fear, fear of the way his eyes flash gold and the air around him sometimes reeks of ozone and static electricity.

he hears _thunderbird, thunderbird,_ whispered under the breath of the sailors, and he wants to scream with his grief.)

The only reason why his nightmares don’t make him wake up with blazing gold eyes and singed sheets every night is because most nights, he lies awake, tossing and turning in the too-soft bed. It is strange, he thinks, that for how he longed for something other than the cold and hard ground that he slept on at the island, he now feels like he’s trapped in that net again, except this time, he can never break free. 

It takes another month for the young man to reach home, and when he does, he is glad to be off the ship once and for all. 

But-

_(flashing lights and cameras with dark liquid lenses, like charcoal eyes staring at him, shouts and screams and roared questions, and this was a storm that he was definitely not prepared for.)_

But his family is not the only group eagerly waiting for his return. 

He shoves his way through the crowd, eyes gold and feet searing into the dock. The press of the crowd quickly extinguishes and flames and he keeps his head down.

It is only when a literal bolt of lightning cracks across the clear blue sky and the thunder sounds like a gunshot that the camera scatter and his family emerges. His brother shouts, an unintelligible noise that is almost as welcome as _thunderbird_. The brother rushes forward and hugs him as tight as he dares.

But- 

_(too bright light, scar aching, men speaking in a strange language, dragging him past dead-eyed prisoners, and he was meant to become one of them, lifeless and hopeless.)_

But the man detaches from to hug with a kind of liquid grace that is strange and alien to his family. He shrugs their concerns off with an attempt at his old flippant ease. 

(his family doesnt mention the cracks they see around the edges. they hope they will heal with time.

they will _not_.)

  
_little thunderbird_

_you a r e ho m e_

_why do you_

_still_

_c_

_a_

_l_

_l_

  
His family cannot understand why he is so jumpy. They do not understand why he does not throw his head back with laughter as he used to. They do not understand why he prefers to be barefoot. They do not understand why he cries out at night and locks the door after they rush to him the first time. They do not understand why he looks out of windows with his strange golden brown eyes with an ancient longing. 

_PTSD_ , says the psychologist, the psychologist that the man did not want to see or talk to. He is only there at his family's insistence, and no amount of unnerving golden staring will dissuade them. _Paranoia_ , she says, and she is only doing her job, but he wants to be anywhere but here. 

(how do you explain that to let your guard down for one second is to be captured, is to be clawed, is to be in danger? how do you explain that you are not crying out in fear, but weeping for what you had lost?)

His therapist is kind, like the crewmen on the ship, and he fears that he will snap in one way or another and hurt her. There is an iron strength underneath the pastel tones, but even iron can be reduced to scrap metal with enough heat. And lightning is hotter than the sun. 

He tells her about the crash. 

(he does not tell her about the dreams after.)

He tells her about the cat, a jaguar, he learns.

(he does not tell her about the men dressed in dark body armor.)

He does not lie to her. 

(he only keeps secrets.)

It is months of dancing around his half secrets before he slips up. It is months of gradually worsening nights, of more scorched sheets, of more days by the cliff side, hoping beyond hope that familiar golden eyes and wings that roll with the thunder soar up. 

She says, _Adam, today I'd like to talk about your friend on the island. The one who gave you the feather._

 _Adam_? he thinks, before _Oh_. 

He has not thought of himself as _Adam_ since the plane went down.

(he has not thought of himself completely _human_ , either.)

 _Adam_. Of the earth. How ironic, considering what he has become. He is not of this Earth. He is of the storm and wind and lightning. 

_Adam_ , she says again, more insistent, still gentle.

(for once, he wishes someone would get _angry_. anger, he can deal with.)

He straightens from his cautiously and strategic slouch (don't look too aware, catch them off guard-) and describes bravery, kindness, intelligence. All true, all incomplete. 

He is saying that he was rescued by them, from the men on the-

He shuts his mouth tight. But it is too late. 

_Tell me_ , she says, brown eyes (not like his now, but still just as compelling) dark and quiet and reaching out for him, a lifeline in his own personal storm that he was drowning in and calling it _safety_.

And with everything else on his shoulders, all the grief and anger and sadness at losing a part of him that he didn't know existed, he cracks. 

He tells her of the dreams of golden eyes and _thunderbird, thunderbird,_ of how they went from unsettling to comforting. He tells of the men in dark body armor, who spoke in a language he couldn't understand, how he really got the branching scar on his shoulder. He does not keep his secrets from her. 

He cries, and it feels as if rocks have been removed from his limbs. He weeps, and it feels like he is finally able to fly. 

He tells her of the screaming rage of the ancient voice, of the fierce loyalty and love and protectiveness. And as he does, his golden eyes spark and flare with more life than they have in months. 

  
_my little thunderbird,_

_y o u are n e v e r alone_

_r e m e m b e r t h a t_

_i promise_

  
He speaks for hours, detailing his nightmares, the ignored sleeping tablets, the longing for something other than what is offered here. He does not miss the island. He does not miss fighting for his life. What he misses is his freedom. 

The nightmares lessen, though he still does not tink of himself as Adam. He is _thunderbird_ and not, an ineffable conglomeration of human and beast. He does not know who or what he is, only that he has his life ahead of him. 

He runs instead of walks. In the early hours of the morning, when birdsong is the only noise for miles, he rises and sprints through the trees. It is not the jungle. But it is close enough. Seared handprints are placed on branches and tree trunks and he carves out his own little niche in the wild. He creates another lean-to, with full knowledge of the fact that there is a large house on a hill waiting with open doors for him. And the fact that he has a voice to be here is comforting to him. 

He spends his days walking through the forest, thinking, sorting, contemplating. And if he feels isolated, if he feels like he is alone, if he feels, just for a second, like he has never left the island, he goes back to that house and he plays a game with his brother or reads with his mother or talks with his father. 

(he sleeps on the floor of his bedroom, when his bed feels like it is trapping him. he wishes that it was earth beneath him, not wooden floor.

the first time he does not return to the house and sleeps under the stars, he does not have the nightmares.)

He wakes refreshed and calm. He walks further and further into the woods, following a creek he had discovered a few days before. It leads to a lake that he vaguely remembers fishing at with his father and brother and learning to swim there when he was little. The water is clear and cool and mist hangs over the place. 

(it is peaceful.)

He decides that he's hungry for a breakfast that he will be able to keep down, and with horrible practiced ease, he fashions a spear from a branch with the aid of a sharp little knife he had secreted away in the lean-to and wades into the shallows. The icy shock dances up his spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and he shivers. 

(he feels _alive_.)

He catches the fish, kills it, and cleans it. He roasts it over a fire he started himself and eats with his hands and fingers. It is messy. It is familiar. 

The sun reaches its zenith and he finds that he's not all that hungry. He heads back to his lean-to and watches the world go by, still as stone. A squirrel even skitters up to him, climbs on his head, and runs off. 

Just before the sun is going to set, he catches another fish and repeats the same process. As the fire throws sparks up into the starry night, he thinks that this is possibly the most content that he's ever been. 

He banks the fire, making sure all the embers are out, before heading back to the lean-to. It is another night without any nightmares. 

It had been so long with them that he clearly didn't remember what it was like without them. The man wakes up, has his breakfast, bit sets out to find the tallest tree he can find. It is high time he had a lookout point. 

Ash, oak, pine, fir. There is a great variety of trees to pick from, and a great many miles he can cover in a day. He eventually finds what must be the second-tallest tree in the area. The tallest, he learns, has a nest of bald eagle hatchlings nestled in its branches. 

At the top of the tree, with the wind rocking him back and forth, _something_ wells up in him, pure and potent, till he from it, his voice being snatched away by the wind.

It was joy, he realizes. 

And then, chasing the wind, he hears-

_little t h u n d e r b i r d,_

_i hear your c r y_

_y o u a r e h_

_o_

_m_

_e,_

_my c h o s e n_

And he howls to the sky again, the air smelling damp and heavy with a coming storm, and he hears _thunderbird_. 

He _dances_ that night, there's no other word for it, banking the fire early and moving under the glittering light of the moon, until it is blocked by rain clouds. 

He kicks up silver sprays of water as he races through the shallows, steam rising from his footprints as he whirls in the sheets of rain that are pouring down. He roars with the thunder, golden eyes flashing with lightning, long into the night. 

He collapses under the lean-to, exhausted, when the storm finally abates. For the first time in months, he goes to sleep feeling whole. For the first time in months, he dreams of searing golden eyes and cries of _thunderbird, thunderbird._

He wakes up to laughter bubbling out of his throat and a sense of something familiar nearby. He is running today, leaping over rocks and by roots, feeling like he could sprout wings and fly. He is _free_ , until-

Movement. In the trees. Voices of strangers. His mind fills in the rest. 

_(dark body armor. guns. words that he does not understand.)_

**_r u n , t h u n d e r b i r d_ **

He runs. He is silent as he flees, but the forest quakes in his path. They shout and give chase, but he has played this game many times before. He does not, will not stop running until the sky had become dark. 

He is leaving tiny wildfires in his wake, footprints of flames. He rushes over damp ground to negate this, but the sparks cracking in his hair and gleaming golden eyes are a bit harder to hide. 

It didn't matter. The wild chase slowed as soon as the sun began to set. When he was sure that he had lost them, he looped back around to his little lean-to. He falls into an uneasy sleep, haunted by both dark figures and golden eyes. 

He wakes to brilliant sunshine (where is the lean-to?) and shouting. 

_\- Adam! We've found - He's here! Call -_

He doesn't really care. He has somehow managed to wake up more tired than he fell asleep, which seems very unfair to him right now. 

_Thunderbird, thunderbird,_ purrs that ancient voice, the voice that he is so relived to have heard again. 

He shuts his eyes against the whorls of color (honestly, who even _wears_ those shades of bright orange? It's awfully hard on the eyes) and attempts to go back to sleep. If only everyone would stop with all the shouting.

Meh. That doesn't matter to him. Nothing really does. 

Scratch that. He's tired. Exhausted. 

And, the ground around him is scorched, like lightning had hit it. 

That's probably why he's so tired, but he can't figure out why he thinks that. 

But the world is fading back to darkness, shouts becoming muffled, thoughts becoming indistinct in the way that they do just before sleep. 

It is warm. And he is tired. 

And _someone_ is propping up wiry and muscular shoulders and bringing a water bottle to his mouth, which makes it a little difficult to go back to sleep. 

He cracks open golden brown eyes and snarls wordlessly. 

_You need to drink_ , says a voice. 

He is not dehydrated. He is not starving. He's not injured. 

He's _really_ tired. 

_let me sleep._

Arms lift him with barely a grunt of effort (despite his muscle, he is still lighter than he should be) and set him in something that moves. Not like the steady motion of the ship. Not the swooping feeling of flying. Driving? Yes, that. 

_How is he?_

_Uninjured. Hydrated. Still all bones, but that's to be expected. He doesn't each much, according to the family. He's one lucky bastard._

_Are you sure?_

_What do you mean?_

_Well, he had that little camp. Remains of a fire and fish bones were found by the lake. He had a knife and other supplies. It looked like a pretty good setup._

_He survived on that island for over a month. That would explain it. But how did this happen?_

_He'd been MIA for just over four days, officially missing for around two. The last one to have seen him was his brother at breakfast, and this kid said that he was going to go for a walk in the woods. They're not too concerned when he spends the whole day in the area, he'd always been the outdoorsy type, apparently. It's when he doesn't come back at night, is when they get worried. They think, **oh, he's just spent the night in the woods, no worries,** and besides, they can't file a missing persons report until forty-eight hours anyway. And then they don't see him at all that day, because this one was living it up as a feral forest child._

( _that's unfair,_ the young man thinks. he is a legal adult. he can take care of himself.)

( _taking care of yourself isn't living in the woods like a hermit,_ a traitorous voice whispers in his mind.)

 _There's a storm rolling in at this point, and they're worried, because of his track record with storms. Either loves them or hates them to the point of barricading himself in his room and thought that he might get himself hurt,_ the voice continues. 

There is someone shining a bright light in his eyes. His body is too leaden to even make a noise of discomfort. 

_No concussion_ , murmurs another voice. 

_The first search parties apparently looked in the completely wrong direction, and thus accomplished sweet fuck-all that first day,_ said the first voice, continuing the story. **_My_** _story_ , the young man thinks, feeling vaguely guilty for what he put his family through. Again. 

_And then the storm hit, and it was a lot worse than what everyone had predicted. We couldn't get anyone out there at all. We were debating swapping Search and Rescue for Recovery at this point, but the family asked for one more day. Good thing they did, too. Group C spotted him sprinting through the forest, as one does. But it looked like he had spotted Group C first, because he went from a full sprint to a dead stop and then back to a full sprint when they started moving to him. Lord knows what was going through his mind, he didn't even seem to recognize his own name._

_He leads a team of grown men on a wild goose chase through some of the roughest country they've ever been in, all while going at the pace of an Olympic athlete. It gets dark, so they draw back, knowing that he's in the area. Except, in the morning, he's fifteen miles away, back at his lean-to, dead to the world, surrounded by scorch marks, where Group A finds him. Tired, I can get, the kid basically parkoured his way through the equivalent of a marathon. But the scorch marks baffle me. It's like he was struck by lightning, but there's not a mark on him except for the previous scar that he got from the plane crash._

( _not true_ , the man thinks muzzily. _lightsaber_.

he finds this hysterical for some reason and would laugh had he not been so exhausted.)

 _As far as we can tell,_ the voice says, sounding perplexed, _he's just simply very, very, exhausted._

There’s a shift in him, almost like fractured bones moving against each other, but without the fiery flashes of pain that would accompany such an event. There is the smell of ozone and a call of _thunderbird_ , and a massive impact rocks his body. 

_What the hell-_

_Was that a fucking **bomb** -_

_What’s going on-_

The young man smiles faintly, eyes still closed.  
  
But then-

_(a human noise of agony, pain ancient and terrible, and its **him** making that noise-)_

Then, there are screams. 

_No_ , he thinks, and he shoves away the bone-deep lethargy as quickly as he can. It’s made easier when he’s thrown from the cot that he had been placed on and slammed into the hard metal flooring of the van that he was traveling in. He staggers upright, shoves open the doors and into a blackened sky. It has turned into a starless night at around eleven in the morning, and the wind shrieks and whips cruelly at any bit of exposed skin. 

_**No**_ , he roars, sky cracking open and water pouring down, and he starts running. He doesn’t know where to. His eyes burn gold and fiery and he leaves lightning in his wake and thunder with every footstep. No one tries to stop him in his mad flight. 

It is better that they did not. 

The scar on his shoulder aches and aches and aches as sparks roll off his shoulders in the shape of sharp-edged wings. He is near the hillside, the area where it goes from gentle slope to sharp drop. This is where his brother leaped with laughing golden eyes and soared up as more than just a brother in his dream. 

And then there is something black, huge, heading for him, skimming over the ground, sleek and deadly as the jaguar. He doesn’t have a spear this time, but he doesn’t need one. He faces back at the chaos, orange vests and pouring rain, with fathomless golden eyes. 

And.

He. 

Falls.

Back. 

_thunderbird,_

_fly over the t r e e s_

_s t o r m s_

_b e g g a r s_

_l i a r s_

_come and r i s e_

_come and r a g e_

_son of the storm,_

_heir to the sky,_

_R E M E M B E R_

_Y O U R_

_W I N G S_

And he does. 

Golden eyes snap open from when they had been closed in reverent prayer, and there is the _kree_ that is so familiar to him. And he is rising, cutting through sharp and cold air and this is so, so very alien to him and it is as easy as breathing, as blinking, as regular as his heart beats. 

There is thunder rolling and crashing and lightning scorching across the sky and _thunderbird_ being roared in his head. There is the fury of the wind and skies around him and he feels like he is _home_. He feels at _peace_.

That peace is short-lived, however.

He is met in the air by the obsidian shape, and it _fights_. It tears at him, screeches and wails and bites and claws. The young man (he questions that now more than anything) spirals with it, thrashing and whirling and he tastes blood that is not his own, bitter and dark. 

There is his own blood, red and coppery and bright and he is locked in a spinning embrace with what feels like Death itself, shrieking and caterwauling and fighting with tooth and claw. He remembers learning about eagles that do this, lock talons and pinwheel in the sky. An aerial game of chicken, is what this is, and he’s not going to blink. 

They plummet to the ground, earth getting closer and closer, rain ripping through them, thunder howling like something feral and captured. There’s a _snap_ and he shrieks in pain and fury as the black _thing_ releases the death grip and soars off, cutting through the gale with ease. 

He is thrown to the ground with a hard thud and he bites his tongue as he _feels_ several of his ribs crack. Agony lances through him as the sparks fade from his skin and the golden fire from his eyes. The storm abates slightly, from something supernatural to just a regular weather phenomenon. People clad in bright orange drift into his field of vision, shouting half-blurred words.

_-the **fuck** was-_

_-injured, get-_

_-family? Where is-_

And despite himself, he dives into the welcoming embrace of darkness. 

He wakes up in the hospital. His ribs are wrapped, an IV in his arm. A steady beeping sound, the heart monitor continuously recording proof of his life. He keeps his eyes shut, not wanting to chance that his family is there. 

What has he done?

Disappeared. 

For ninety-eight hours. 

What was he _thinking_?

After everything that they had done, that they had, had _put up_ with, he fucking drops off the face of the Earth for over _four days?_

Pretty poor repayment. 

_my thunderbird,_

_we are k i n_

_we are c l a n_

_do not feel g u i l t_

_for w a n t i n g to s e a r c h_

_to k n o w_

_to f i n d_

_a part of y o u r s e l f_

And for the first time, he doubts. 

He doubts what he is. He doubts what he feels. He doubts himself, most of all. 

It is not a good feeling. It sticks in his stomach like rage and chokes his lungs like fear. It makes his scar tingle and burn and curls up in the small dark place of him and whispers that he is only _Adam_. 

There are no cries of _thunderbird_ , _thunderbird_ to drown it out. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and tell me what you think.


End file.
